Fantasy Fellowship Deep-Dive: Optimizing Your Characters, Part 3

Good morning gamers,

This is our third part in this mini-series on which characters are the "best" choices for Fantasy Fellowships - at least with the analytic model I've made. We've already looked at the Ringbearer and Companion slots, as well as the Rohan/Gondor "friend" slots, and today we turn to the Wizard and "Doomed hero" slots (or "who's going to replace Gandalf and Boromir"). Let's take a look!

The Wizard - Scoring Criteria

As we covered in a previous post, this character has fewer missions than almost any other member of the Fellowship (only Boromir has less screen time - and we're getting to his slot later in this post). Besides the Ringbearer slot, this is also the most constrained slot in your Fantasy Fellowships, since you have to pick a hero from one of the following ten characters:

• Gandalf the Grey (not Gandalf the White)
  
• Saruman the White
• Radagast the Brown
• Galadriel (not Lady of Light)
• Elrond, Master of Rivendell
• Celeborn
• Cirdan
• Arwen Undomiel
• Gildor Inglorion
• Thranduil, King of the Woodland Realm (presumably with the Circlet of Kings so he actually has some magical powers, but this isn't ACTUALLY required)
  

The list is basically the three wizards, two Elves who act like wizards (possibly three, depending on who else is in your Fellowship) and five (or four) other Elves who happen to have magical powers (or can get magical powers with a piece of war gear, in Thranduil's case). Given that they will only be participating in the four scenarios of the Moria Sequence (with a very critical role in the Bridge of Khazad-Dum scenario), one scenario in Rohan (Eomer's Return), two scenarios in Minas Tirith, and the End of All Things scenario to close out Fantasy Fellowships, here are the five categories that are important to them.

Dueling Profile

It's no secret - most magic casters in MESBG aren't great in combat. Usually, you want a few ranks of warriors standing in front of these guys to make sure they don't get torn apart by something big and nasty or a horde of really puny grunts - but that isn't an option in Fantasy Fellowships. Your wizard character might have 20+ guys to keep him safe as you ride to save Helm's Deep or defend the walls of Minas Tirith, but during the early missions, you're going to have a few brave souls to keep the pain off this guy - and with at least a few of those characters being Hobbits, even some of THOSE guys can't be relied upon to keep your wizard alive. As such, I've made this metric simple (perhaps overly simple - see the discussion below on this) and given a utility score to each character based on the number of attacks the hero has (in a few cases, this can be modified by their war gear):

• Utility score of 1: 3+ Attacks
  
• Utility score of 0.5: 2 Attacks
  
• Utility score of 0.1: 1 Attack
• Utility score of 0: Unarmed
  

Wounding Profile

This metric is probably also too simple, but it's important that the wizard be able to contribute to the kill-count of the team. Yes, you can't expect these guys (for the most part) to keep up with the killing tallies of your Three Hunter characters (more on them next time), but it would be good if they are able to tackle the D4-5 Wargs, Goblins, and Orcs they're going to face in the early scenarios, and the D5-6 Uruks and Morannon Orcs they're going to face in the later scenarios. There are also off-cases where it pays to be S5 (you're more reliable against D5 foes and can wound that D9 Balrog on a single die), so I've extended this assessment to reward you for being S5, S4, or S3 - and penalized being unarmed:

• Utility score of 1: Effective S5+
  
• Utility score of 0.5: Effective S4
  
• Utility score of 0.1: Effective S3
• Utility score of 0: Unarmed
  

Probability of Breaking the Bridge

This may seem niche because it only affects one scenario, but as currently written, in this ONE scenario, the ONLY way you can "win," is by breaking the bridge of Khazad-Dum. So . . . I felt it right that a hero who has unlimited Will points (and will break the bridge eventually if you kill everyone off) would be more valuable than someone who had more than 3 Will points (since they can get off two 2-dice casts against the bridge), and the 4 Will characters would be more reliable than the 3 Will characters (who might get off two casts, but likely only have one successful cast in their future):

• Utility score of 1: Unlimited Will points
  
• Utility score of 0.5: More than 3 Will points
  
• Utility score of 0.1: 1-3 Will points
  

Terror

I said this in the overview post for Moria, but it bears repeating here: having Terror in Fantasy Fellowships is awesome - and giving it to nearby models (especially those Hobbits/cheap heroes you brought) is excellent too. Since wizards are the only characters who can give Terror to other models via Aura of Dismay, it seemed right to reward those who can cast Aura of Dismay more than the wizards who have Terror innately or can cast Terrifying Aura to give it to themselves (which is basically everyone).

• Utility score of 1: Can cast Aura of Dismay
  
• Utility score of 0.5: Has Terror in their profile
  
• Utility score of 0.1: Can cast Terrifying Aura to give Terror to self
  
• Utility score of 0: No Terror
  

Benefits After Death

The boosts that come from the "rebirth" of the wizard character can be found on page 116 of Quest of the Ringbearer. If you took Galadriel or Gandalf, they are replaced with the profile for Galadriel, Lady of Light or Gandalf the White respectively. Functionally, this is going to give your wizard 1-2 extra Attacks, higher Defense for Gandalf, higher Strength for Galadriel (as well as the removal of her unarmed keyword), and modify their spell suites (including reducing the casting difficulties of many of Gandalf's spells).

If you took anyone else, then they reduce their casting difficulties by 1 (but this won't go below a 2+ casting difficulty) and gain +1 Attack up to a maximum of 2. This means that there are really two ways that a hero can improve their profile: by gaining an extra attack and by lowering their casting difficulty levels.

• Utility score of 1: Spell difficulty reduction and extra Attack
  
• Utility score of 0.5: Spell difficulty reduction only
• Utility score of 0.1: no benefits
  

I decided after reviewing the scoring criteria that not all of these categories should be weighted equally - the dueling/wounding profile is, obviously, very important in all the scenarios and the probability of breaking the Bridge of Khazad-Dum is necessary for a victory in that scenario (which I hold to be a mistake), but how much you NEED to benefit from your "reborn" state is up for debate, as is the ability give Terror to nearby units (or even have it yourself). I still wanted to reward getting improvements from the reborn state and having Terror/granting it to other models, but I'm weighting the combat stats as worth 30% of the final score each, the probability of breaking the bridge and having/granting Terror as worth 15% each, and the benefits after death as worth 10% of the final score. Okay, let's get into the list!

Top 10 Wizards

I would like to begin by saying that I love all the models that we're going to talk about - I own them all, I use them all, and I think they're all great in their own ways. And so, it is with a heavy heart that I need to reveal that the wizard character who scored the worst in my assessment was . . .

Rank #10: Arwen Undomiel

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

I love Arwen - she's the cheapest wizard option you have, she's F6 base (and isn't unarmed, so if she can just roll well/have some help, she can tip the scales against just about anything you're going to face) and she's got a killer spell (literally) with Wrath of Bruinen. In two of the categories, she did quite well - she got a score of 0.5 for bridge-breaking thanks to having 4 Will points and she benefits a LOT from her rebirth transformation (where she picks up the second Attack and reduces her Wrath of Bruinen casting difficult, which is awesome).

But the other three categories were going to be her downfall - being F6 is great, but having 1 Attack base is not (0.1 for that). She's also only S3, which is fine if she's just fighting Goblins, Orcs, and Wargs, but it isn't great if she runs into the stronger things - including half the Uruk-Hai in the Eomer Returns scenario and about half of the Morannon Orcs in the End of All Things scenario (0.1 for that). What really crippled her score is that she's the only character we're looking at today who doesn't have Terror innately or the ability to get it via a spell. With three bad scores, she was going to sink to the bottom. Despite her positioning, anyone who's planning to dump a bunch of points into their Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli slots should consider taking her because she IS really good (just not in this analytic model) and is also really cheap. She ended with a utility score of 1.175, which is a bit better than 20% of the maximum possible score.

Speaking of someone who wasn't liked by the model, let's turn to . . .

Rank #9: Galadriel

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

If it hurt me to put Arwen at the bottom, it hurt more to put Galadriel right above her. If I'd done a straight average of the five stats instead of weighting it towards the combat stats, she would have done pretty well (2.5 out of 5). As it happens, when you give someone scores of 0 for being unarmed in both of the highest scoring categories, your overall utility . . . just isn't going to be that high. Being unarmed IS a big problem in Fantasy Fellowships, however, since you don't have a wall of guys who can keep you out of harms way - and I'll tell you what, while you might be able to shield Galadriel from fighting in scenarios like Wargs in the Night, the fighting in the other Moria missions is CRAZY and trying to shield a model from attack is all but impossible. So yes, I stand by my model and I'm putting her at 9th.

As you can see from her chart, she got terrible scores in dueling and wounding, but she got perfect marks for the changes her profile gets after her death, but I had to be creative with this one. Galadriel is one of two profiles that doesn't get "a -1 reduction", and while Gandalf gets a -1 reduction on most of his spells (some stay the same, others are swapped for new ones), her spell suite changes dramatically - and she's not going to be able to use two of her new spells much (Fortify Spirit can only be used against spells cast by the Mouth of Sauron in the End of All things and Banishment can't be used at all), so she's really trading out Immobilize, Command, Blessing of the Valar, and Blinding Light (all of which are useful in the Moria sequence) for Instill Fear (which IS quite useful against Uruk-Hai, Orc Warriors, and Morannon Orcs, but isn't cast on an easier difficulty level). Still, I felt bad for how little the boost in Attacks and lack of Unarmed was giving her, so I figured giving her a full score on this one wasn't out of line. She also got half-marks for having Terror innately in her profile. Her final score was a 1.625.

As an academic exercise, I checked to see what her score would have been if I had been more generous with her dueling and wounding scores - if I set the dueling score to 1 (since she'll play half of her scenarios with 3 Attacks and no Unarmed penalty) and her wounding score to 0.5 (for being S4 in her improved form), she jumped up to a score of 3.875 - though it's unclear if she should get full marks for her rebirth stat in this assessment since her boosts would be double-counted. When you average out these two scores, she lands at a very respectable 2.75 (or about there - it very much depends on whether you think her rebirth score in the second assessment was too high). This would cause her to jump up to 6^th place instead of 9^th place, so that's something. Either way, she came in just behind the other Unarmed candidate . . .

Rank #8: Cirdan

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

Do you remember how I said that being unarmed was bad? Well, Cirdan's unarmed as well - and he bests Galadriel only because he gets full marks on all three of the other categories. Unlike Galadriel, when he turns into "god-mode-Cirdan," he's still going to be unarmed - and he's only going to have 2 Attacks as well. If you expect to see a big change in how he plays just because he became Cirdan the White . . . well, think again.

However, Cirdan does provide a lot of utility to your Fellowship - he has Aura of Dismay as his only hard-to-cast spell (giving him full marks for the Terror stat), he has a free Will point each turn to break the bridge (which isn't tied to a Staff of Power, so he'll still be able to cast with a free Will point each turn in the Denethor's Madness scenario), and he will reduce the difficulty of casting both Aura of Dismay (awesome) and Enchanted Blades (also awesome) in addition to picking up a second Attack when he's reborn. This guy costs 20pts more than Arwen and while he won't be the combatant that she is, he's also providing a LOT of boosts to your team . . .

. . . but you're going to have to protect that boy in Moria. This guy is about as fragile as Arwen (D4 with 2 Wounds/1 Fate is only 1 Defense-pip higher than Arwen) and a lot more fragile than Galadriel (D3 with 3 Wounds/3 rerollable Fate - and Blessing of the Valar innately and potentially the Mirror of Galadriel). So protect him if you take him - and understand that this guy is a lot better than this analytic model is able to assess (final utility score of 2). Now for a real shocker . . .

Rank #7: Saruman the White

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

I did not see this one coming - I mean, Saruman's on my short-list for best casters in the game (and anyone who goes from casting a Sorcerous Blast on a 4+ to casting it on a 3+ HAS to be a good choice for your wizard, right?). Well, yes . . . except . . . his combat stats are not great. 1 Attack - no matter what your Fight Value is - isn't good, and when you're being overwhelmed by Goblins or Orcs, it's a liability. Yes, Saruman can cast for a LONG time with his reroll and free Will point, but once that boy gets charged, he'd better find help.

His dueling score, as a result, wasn't good, but his wounding score was fine (S4 is good enough in most cases). I could have given him full credit for two-handing, but even I get anxious two-handing with a single die (so I expect the two-handing wouldn't happen often). He has infinite Will for breaking the bridge and gets +1 Attack and reduced casting difficulties for half of his spells (including Sorcerous Blast and Command) by becoming Saruman the Bleached-Bone-White. His only other weak point in this analytic model is that he has Terrifying Aura instead of Aura of Dismay or Terror. Yes, he'll probably get Terror up on himself every game, but it'll require NOT casting Sorcerous Blast right away (which is fine in some scenarios and hard in others). With a final score of 2.225, he's a fine choice (though again, one that you'll need to protect). Now for the big surprise scorer in my book . . .

Rank #6: Gildor Inglorion

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

Well, look who's mister even-keel - Gildor scored a 0.5 in every single category. The reason for this is simple: he's got 2 Attacks (good, not great), he's got S4 (good, not great), he's got Terror innately (but doesn't help others), he's got a better-than normal amount of Will to break the bridge, and he has 2 Attacks already, so getting a reduction in his Immobilize difficulty is good, but he's not really getting a lot of benefits from coming back from the dead. When I did my review of the wizard slot in the Part 4 Deep-Dive, I mentioned that Gildor wasn't a great choice for your wizard in Fantasy Fellowships - and while Centaur has had some gripes with him this year, I think we'd both admit that "he's fine." Having a 2A hero in your wizard slot is better than half the heroes you can get (roughly) and with F6 on that guy, he's pretty reliable against anything he's fighting. Immobilize isn't the best spell for Fantasy Fellowships (there aren't a lot of big heroes you have to fight in the Gandalf missions), but it's still useful and it's something Gildor does well.

With a final adjusted utility score of 2.5 (I mean, he scored 0.5 in everything, so yeah, 2.5 out of 5 is expected), Gildor comes in about the middle of the pack and isn't a horrible choice for your Fellowship . . . but honestly, I feel like the 1A options that preceded him in this analysis might be better choices overall.

Tied for #4: Celeborn with the Elven-made hand-and-a-half sword and Elrond (probably both with heavy armor)

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

We have a two-way tie here between Celeborn and Elrond because . . . well, their profiles are incredibly similar. To start off with Celeborn, he's got the desired 3 Attacks (with a reroll from Lord of the West), he's S4 (though he could have scored higher if he two-hand with his hand-and-a-half sword - which, with the reroll he gets from Lord of the West isn't a difficult ask), he's got a fine-not-great amount of Will (only 3), he's got Terror in his profile (most of the Elves in this list do), and he only reduces the casting value of his spells (Enchanted Blades and Immobilize, but not Aura of Command). All in all, he's a great hero and scored a very impressive score of 2.95.

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

Elrond has the same stats BUT can score higher than Celeborn if you have Lindir in your Fellowship. While Lindir is within 6" of Elrond, Elrond gets a free Will point each turn, so his score for breaking the bridge would increase from 0.1 to 1.0 and would give him a final utility score of 3.625 instead of 2.95. As a give-away for the final rankings, this would catapult him from tied for fourth to just barely first overall . . . and I think we'd all agree that a free-Will-point Elrond would be TERRIFYING to fight in Fantasy Fellowships (the chance for a Wrath of Bruinen knock-down every turn? Anyone gonna dispute that?).

If you want to run Elrond, I would highly recommend you run Lindir in your Boromir slot or your Gimli slot (more on this later) so you can have Elrond get these boosts through Moria. You won't be able to get these bonuses during the two Minas Tirith missions (Lindir's too expensive for your Pippin slot) and if he's taken as Gimli, he might feel like dead weight in the Deeping Wall is Breached and the Docks of Harlond scenarios (though you have plenty of help in those ones). As it happens, I'm not allowing heroes to score better just because another hero is in your Fellowships (all of the limited-Will casters would benefit from having Bombur in your Fellowship and would then be able to break the bridge eventually) - so Elrond and Celeborn tie.

Rank #3: Gandalf the Grey

I was honestly a bit surprised that Gandalf did this well, but then again, he has infinite will, he's the only S5 hero in this evaluation, and he gets a boost to his Attack stat and a reduction to many of his spell difficulties. Three 1s is going to rank you pretty high, even if two of those stats are not weighted as highly as other stats. His 1 Attack is a bit of a hindrance early on (experience talking, as this has been my wizard this year) and only having access to Terrifying Aura isn't doing him any favors, but he was able to just barely edge out Celeborn and Elrond for slot #3 with a utility score of 2.975.

Now lest anyone think that this shows a flaw in my metric (since Gandalf was the only person to be able to score max-points in the Wounding category), I'd like to share a few thoughts on why Gandalf is such a good choice for Fantasy Fellowships. First and foremost, Gandalf is the only caster in Fantasy Fellowships who can give himself Will points - and not just Will points he's already spent, but he can stash up Will ABOVE his normal limit, so if you're walking around waiting for the action to start, you can be super-charging yourself so that you can last longer when the fighting is tense. This was shown in almost all of my Moria missions (see those posts here and here) and it makes a HUGE difference for how many resources he has going into the next scenario (which, if you haven't stockpiled Will for the Bridge of Khazad-Dum scenario can make survival in your campaign very difficult). I knew the power of Strengthen Will before I got into this campaign, but I tell you what, a campaign narrative format really makes you appreciate those resource regeneration characters - and Gandalf especially.

Second, while Gandalf gets full-marks for his wounding ability, being S5 makes a huge difference. When Gandalf is fighting D4 Wild Wargs, D4 Moria Goblins, or a D6 Cave Troll, being S5 isn't a huge deal. However, with a D5 Wild Warg Chieftain, D5 Moria Goblins/Captains, and a D9 Balrog, you REALLY want to have access to S5 or +1 To Wound (or both). Some of the wizards we've looked at so far can two-hand from S4 (Saruman the White, Celeborn with his hand-and-a-half sword, and Elrond - two of which are 3 Attack heroes with Lord of the West) and one of the upcoming heroes can two-hand as well (Radagast the Brown - no ominous foreshadowing required), but all of them are going to be willing to spend Might to win their fight if they want this reduced wounding difficulty - and with the spam of models you face in Moria, risking that may not be that appealing. Also, Gandalf can two-hand from S5 as well, so if Saruman or Radagast is willing to risk it, Gandalf could risk it also . . . and wound on an even LOWER difficulty level. That deserves some credit, I feel.

Third, we could have gotten some better rewards for the heroes who can two-hand with a penalty if we made the dueling score more robust. Counting Attacks is a very simplistic way of determining whether you're a good or a bad fighter, because generally speaking, the more dice you roll, the better. In Fantasy Fellowships, you'll almost always be outnumbered (especially in the scenarios that your wizard is participating in), so being able to roll more dice is good. However, both Celeborn and Elrond are rolling 4 dice each thanks to Lord of the West (rerolling the lowest), so we could have identified the average-expected dueling score they are supposed to get if they two-hand and see if that would drive up their score without sacrificing too much in the dueling department. Gandalf, Saruman, Arwen, Galadriel, and Cirdan would see limits placed on their scores because they only have 1 Attack (especially Galadriel and Cirdan, since they're unarmed), while guys like Celeborn, Thranduil, and Elrond would sky-rocket to the top. It should be noted, however, that these three combat-heavy wizards are already at the top, so it would just be to put Gandalf "in his place" and lower on the rankings. I already think my metric is too heavily slanted to the wizard's combat capabilities as it is, so making that disparity even greater didn't seem right to me.

Okay, enough about Gandalf - we're on to number two, who is, of course . . .

Rank #2: Thranduil, King of the Woodland Realms with the Circlet of Kings and additional Elven-made sword

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Thranduil is, on paper, incredibly cheap for being a Hero of Legend - for 100pts base, you can do both much better than him and much worse than him for his cost. However, no one runs Thranduil at 100pts (in Matched Play or Fantasy Fellowships) because most players want the heavy armor (10pt boost to bring you up to D6 instead of D4), they want the extra sword (30pt boost to bring you to F7/4+ Attacks while on foot instead of F6/2 Attacks), and if you want to score well in this particular model, you want to also take the Circlet of Kings (a 25pt piece of gear that gives you the most reliable cast of Aura of Dismay in the game and a once-per-game cast of Nature's Wrath). When you tally all THIS up, you're sitting on a 165pt Thranduil, which is not quite as expensive as Gandalf, Saruman, or Elrond (if you give him heavy armor - which you probably should), but it's definitely expensive compared to some of the other options (though he's not THAT much more expensive than Radagast and Celeborn, who are sitting in the 145-155pt range).

Thranduil's rankings are about the same as Elrond and Celeborn - he's got 3 Attacks and Strength 4 (though he doesn't have a way to two-hand), and he's only got 3 Will points to try to break the bridge. He differs from these two guys, though, in two key respects. First, since his two spells are automatically cast and he starts with 2+ Attacks, he actually doesn't benefit from the resurrection bonuses at all. Second, because he can automatically cast Aura of Dismay, he gets a better Terror score than either of the other two, which makes up for not scoring in the previous category. Interestingly enough, because the Terror score is weighted more heavily than the benefits you get from coming back from the dead, he just barely outscores Celeborn and Elrond (and Gandalf) with a utility score of 3.075.

Functionally, in Fantasy Fellowships, Thranduil is a boss - he's going to have 4+ Attacks at F7 against amy number of foes, and he's going to be able to knock a bunch of guys prone on one turn of the game (and make all your nearby friends cause Terror starting on the first turn of the game). With Terror being such a big problem for Evil in Fantasy Fellowships, he's a clear victor.

But he's also not THAT much better than his competitors - not just in this metric, but in other subjective ways as well. He's got good Defense (D6), but so do Elrond and Celeborn (and eventually Gandalf the White). He's got a healthy amount of Attacks, but without Lord of the West, he has to be fighting 2+ foes in order to out-dice Elrond and Celeborn. Aura of Dismay and Nature's Wrath are nice, but Nature's Wrath isn't as good as Wrath of Bruinen and Aura of Dismay will be great in most of your scenarios, but not in Wargs in the Night (where the Wargs pass all Courage tests) or the Bridge of Khazad-Dum (until the Balrog dies, that Goblin Mastery rule paired with Fearless on the Balrog is pretty debilitating). So yes, Thranduil did a good job in my analytic model (which I'm happy about), but if you're drawn to the other two heroes, I totally get that. Okay, now for our winner . . .

Rank #1: Radagast the Brown with Sebastian

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

I LOVE this guy so much - and he had all the right stuff to score good-or-great on every metric. Like the other wizards, he's got 1 Attack base, but for the low-low price of 5pts, he can get Sebastian, who lets him roll an extra dueling die and a low-Strength wounding die (though he can't Might the roll). This isn't the same as having 2 Attacks, but it's functionally very similar, so I gave him mid-marks for it. He's also S4 (with the ability to two-hand, as discussed above), so he got mid-marks for that.

He excelled in the other three categories, thanks to having infinite Will to break the bridge, Aura of Dismay to help his friends cause Terror, and only 1 Attack base and spells that benefit from having reduced difficulties. All told, he was the perfect candidate for my model, but he's also commonly held to be the best hero for this position anyway, so I didn't feel like the model was over-fitted to his needs. He also ended with a utility score of 3.5, so not too far above Thranduil (who was almost at 3.1) and below Elrond if Lindir is in your Fellowship. Still, I think he's the best and I'm glad my model agreed with me. :-)

Okay, with the wizards out of the way, let's turn to what is definitely the most expendable Fellowship slot . . .

The Doomed - Scoring Criteria

So let's get this out of the way: there are 151 profiles to review here, so we're not going to tackle them all. While the wizard slot is one of those things you can be exhaustive on (like the Ringbearer and Companion slots), there's just no way that I can go through all 151 possible profiles here - and a lot of it would be repetitive. So instead, we're going to look at the Top 10 characters you can take for this slot and then I'll go through some honorable mentions. Here's our scoring metric . . .

Dueling Profile

As I covered in my deep-dives for both Part 2 and Part 3, while having a good fighter in this slot has value, being F4 with 2+ Attacks is just fine for this guy (since he'll be fighting F2 Goblins, F3 Wargs, and F4 Uruk-Hai). Anyone who's better than F4/2A might have more utility against the biggest nasties in each mission (and retain a higher FV than the Uruks), but frankly, he'll have the help of the Three Hunters characters (who have to fight Uruk-Hai more - and more heroes than in the Moria missions), so having someone who's "fine" is good enough.

There is some utility in being not-as-good as Uruk-Hai but on-par/better than Goblins (so long as you're rolling more dice), so our mid-range is expecting you to either be F4 with 1 Attack OR be F2-3 with 2+ Attacks (so you're either a higher-Fight than most things you need to face or you're on-part with them, but have more base attacks than they do). We'll award a very small amount of points to models who are F1 (no matter how many Attacks they have) or those who are F1-3 and only have 1 Attack:

• Utility score of 1: F4+/2+ Attacks
  
• Utility score of 0.5: F4+/1 Attack OR F2-3/2+ Attacks
  
• Utility score of 0.1: F1/2+ Attacks OR F1-3/1 Attack

Wounding Profile

This is going to sound a lot like our qualifications for our wizards - we want to be S5+ if we can (effectively, once you calculate To Wound bonuses from weapons/rules), S4 is good-enough, S3 or less isn't great (but still worth something). Honestly, we probably could have ranked S3 higher, but with some D6+ models you'll need to fight (the Cave Troll, the Balrog, and Lurtz), there is value in being S4 over being S3:

• Utility score of 1: Effective S5+
  
• Utility score of 0.5: Effective S4
  
• Utility score of 0.1: Effective S1-3

Passing Courage Tests

In almost every mission, Courage will matter - all of them except Amon Hen. If we have good Courage (or an auto-pass Courage rule), we have more flexibility in what kinds of models we can deal with - so we're going to evaluate this the same way we've done it for basically every profile so far:

• Utility score of 1: auto-pass 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

Heroic Strike and/or Heroic Defense and Might Level

In our previous assessments, Heroic Strike is basically the only Heroic Action that's mattered (or March for Companions). Today, we're opening up the aperature a bit and rewarding models who have either Heroic Strike (so we have the opportunity to get a higher Fight Value than other models) or Heroic Defense (so we can road-block other models). The primary delimiter between profiles is going to be how many times we can use these, which is predominately determined by how much Might we have:

• Utility score of 1: one or both heroic actions with 3+ Might
  
• Utility score of 0.5: one or both heroic actions with 2 Might
  
• Utility score of 0.1: neither heroic action or 1 Might
  

Cost

This is our last category, and it contributed heavily to the final scoring. If you just take the previous four categories (being at least F4/2A, effective S5+, good Courage, and good heroic actions), there are quite a few expensive, power-house heroes who get full marks - guys like Beorn or Dain Ironfoot (either version) who are F6+ with 3 Attacks, at least S4 with +1 To Wound (or S8 in bear form), the Fearless special rule, and access to at least Strike and 3 Might points. These guys are clearly overqualified for this position and aren't the models we want to spend our resources on (since we know we're going to lose this slot after the Amon Hen mission, regardless of whether they live or not). So, I applied a utility score that COULD go negative if the hero was "too expensive."

• Utility score: (110 - <cost>)/100

To get a full score of "1" in this category, you need to cost 10pts - which only a handful of models do (and no one costs less than that). Everyone else, until they reach 110pts, is going to get some score between 0 and 1 - and anyone who costs more than 110pts is going to get a negative score (though how negative it is will be determined by their cost. I should note that, even with a negative score in this category, the other scores can STILL cause these big models to score well - but not Top-10 well.

Okay, let's see who made the final list!

Top 10 Doomed Guys

Rank #10: Dain Ironfoot, King Under the Mountain

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Yep, this is my boy - and I love using this guy in Matched Play! As it happens, Dwarves did really well in this assessment, since it's easy to get F6/3A, S5 or S4 with +1 To Wound, and 3 Might with Strike and/or Defense. Dain pairs this with Fearless and "only" costs 130pts (which is slightly cheaper than his younger self, who came in at 18^th place). With a utility score of 3.8 (-0.2pts for costing 20pts more than our baseline), he's basically everything you want in a hero for this metric (and as a foreshadowing for next week, he's meeting most of the requirements we want for our Aragorn slots too).

In general, I think this guy costs more than you'd want in this slot - and honestly, I kind of wish I'd penalized models MORE for being over 100pts, but this is fine. While I wouldn't recommend taking a 130pt model that you're just going to lose, this guy certainly punches above his weight and would be valuable in any Fantasy Fellowship (though his penalties to jump tests could see him plummeting to his death in the Dwarrowdelf scenario).

Rank #9: Balin the Dwarf, King of Moria

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

Just above Dain (who I love) is another Dwarf hero (who I love): Balin the Dwarf, King of Moria. For slightly fewer points than Dain (110pts), Balin gives you a good combat profile (F6/2A with a reroll from Durin's Axe, followed up by S4 with a free +1 To Wound), 3 Might and access to both Strike and Defense (and March!), and a good courage rating of 6 (0.833 probability of charging the Balrog, higher chance of charging the Wild Warg Chieftain/Cave trolls).

While Balin didn't get full marks for having Fearless on the Courage stat, the fact that he gets a score of 0 for his cost instead of a score of -0.2 means he came in 0.067 points higher than Dain at 3.833 . . . so they're basically the same. Functionally, I think it better to spend 20 points less on a hero who allows you to reroll your priority rolls and doesn't have a penalty to his jump tests (even if he's got 1 fewer wounds) than to buy a bigger beater hero like Dain. This does highlight a few things about my analytic model (that "tricks" these guys provide isn't valued here - and some metric for resiliency isn't weighted either).

We can't have all-Dwarves in our list, however (though there will be more, rest assured), so let's turn to a model I didn't expect to see on the list . . .

Rank #8: Deowine, Chief of the King's Knights

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Deorwine is a go-to hero for many Theoden-led Rohan lists - who doesn't want free Heroic Combats on a F5 mounted hero? When you know you're going to be an all-infantry force, however, it does beg the question whether getting a budget Rohan hero (who has Expert Rider and Horse Lord and no horse to trigger these rules) is worth it. As it happens, Deorwine is one of those models that also just-barely met all the requirements we wanted . . . and does it for less than 100 points.

Deorwine is F5/2A - which is excellent for the guys he's going to face, he's got Bodyguard (not Sworn Protector, like some other Rohan heroes do), and he's got 3 Might and Strike - that's three full marks right there. He's "only" Courage 4 (half-marks), but with a total cost of 75pts, he gets a very respectable utility score of 3.85 and narrowly edged out Balin (0.02 higher than him, 0.05 higher than King Dain). If you think the comparison here is close . . . well, get used to it - there's only a 0.3 point difference between 10^th and 1^st place . . .

Deorwine certainly becomes better if Theoden is around, so I'm not sure I'd pick him to be my Boromir character (though I think it's a pity that Boromir doesn't get to continue on if he lives in the Amon Hen mission) - as a Legolas character, he's not a bad shout (since he'll be working with Theoden in two missions). With Deorwine out of the way, let's jump to our cheapest character in this section . . .

Rank #7: Bifur the Dwarf

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Oh look, it's Bifur again! Bifur's got the bare-minimum desired combat stats (F4/2A) and while he doesn't have S5 innately, you can get to S5 (effectively S7) if he uses his boar spear as a two-handed axe. While two-handing in Fantasy Fellowships can be risky (you're usually out-numbered), Bifur will always have 7-8 other Fellowships members with him (and if you have Maggot in your Fellowship, that could be 10-11 other models) and so two-handing with him is certainly something he can do if he's only got 1-2 foes lined up against him. He doesn't get full marks for Courage (he's C5) and he's only got 2 Might points for Strike, but his cost of 45pts really outweighs the lack of the third Might point and not having Bodyguard. As a cheap option, Bifur's a logical choice to rival the others.

I will say that I was a bit saddened that the cheapest guy who ticked off enough of the other boxes to make the top 10 was a 45pt model - I mean, losing 45 points of your starting 750 feels like a lot. We'll talk about this a little later, since I had hoped that guys like Denethor (good dueling/Courage scores, so-so wounding score, bad Strike/Might score) or Braga (good dueling/Might scores, so-so wounding/cost scores, bad Courage score) didn't make it. With F3/1A being penalized in this metric, there wasn't much hope that 10-point Hobbit heroes like Merry and Pippin would score well, but that's alright. Now we're back to the big, beefy Dwarf heroes who are well-costed - and who better to fill in the spot of his friend Boromir than . . .

Rank #6: Gimli, Son of Gloin

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

Gimli's good - he's at least a F6/2A hero with S4 and +1 To Wound (though he could be a F6/3A hero with S5 if he uses Piercing Strike, so he's got the full dueling/wounding scores on multiple counts). He's got Courage 6 (which is as close to godliness as you're going to get short of Bodyguard in this mix) and with 3-Might-and-Strike, he's pretty much maxed out four of the scoring categories. As expected, that 100-point cost is going to hurt him a little, but he's still getting a positive score, which put him ahead of Balin by 0.1 with a final utility score of 3.933.

Given that Boromir of Gondor costs the same as Gimli and has F6/3A, Courage 6, and 6-Might-and-Strike, you'd think that Boromir would make the list - but he didn't. Why? It's that S4 with the two-handed weapon (no penalties) that sets Gimli (and heroes like Dain and Balin) ahead of him. I think Boromir's extra Might points should have given him a boost to his Strength score for this evaluation (since he has Might points he could spend to boost rolls if he wanted to), but since this guy only gets one rest point (at Lothlorien), you probably think twice about killing a Goblin with a Might point . . . it's probably far better to have the +1 To Wound in-place. If only Boromir had a hand-and-a-half sword . . .

Okay, we've seen a lot of Dwarves so far, so let's continue the trend and look at our three-way tie for third, which has one Dwarf and two men from Gondor . . .

Tied for #3: Irolas, Captain of the Guard, Dwalin the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor, and Angbor the Fearless

All three of these characters came in with a final utility score of 3.95 (just 0.017 points above Gimli) . . . and I don't know that you can get a more ecclectic set of characters! Let's start with Irolas . . .

Photo Credit: Gondor at War

Irolas has the basic dueling requirements we want (F5/2A is pretty good), he's only S4 (his "weakness"), he's got Bodyguard and 3-Might-and-Defense (and March), and comes in at only 65 points. If you're going to pay 20 points more than Bifur to get +1 Fight Value, potentially less wounding capability, and passing all your Courage tests/tanking for your team a little longer, I think you could do worse than Irolas.

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Dwalin is a completely different story - he's over-qualified for the dueling and wounding categories (F6/3A at S5-6 with +1 To Wound OR F6/4A at S5-6) and with Fearless (and potentially Sworn Protector), he's got the Courage stat in the bucket as well. This is the only version of 3-Might-and-Strike Dwalin (which is why his other profiles aren't on this list - even though I think they'd be brilliant options for it), so it's really just his slightly-too-high cost (115pts) that keeps him from securing this spot above the other two guys. For the record, Young Dwalin ended up in 13^th place with a score of 3.75 and Thorin's Company Dwalin ended up in 21^st place with a score of 3.65 . . . any version of Dwalin is a pretty good choice (albeit an expensive one for this slot).

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

Angbor is a happy medium between the two - he's got a more moderated combat profile that still ticks all the boxes (F5/2A and S4 with a two-handed weapon), he's Fearless like Dwalin, but he only has 2-Might-and-Strike. To make up for it, he also costs 65 points, so he's a good budget version of Dwalin (you know, if you don't want to pay for either of the OTHER two budget versions of Dwalin). Just to emphasize how close this guy was to being the best, if he had 1 additional Might point, he'd actually be ranked first today . . . a crazy good chap he is.

Speaking of a budget version of Dwalin, slot #2 should marry the excellent combat stats of Dwalin with a reduced cost . . . and for that, we turn to . . .

Rank #2: Gloin the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

If anyone is going to just narrowly beat out Dwalin in anything, it's Gloin. Ask any Matched Play player who's running Erebor Reclaimed and he'll tell you that Gloin is, point-for-point, a better deal than a dismounted Dwalin. Sure, he might be S4 instead of S5, he might not have the option to get +1 Attack at the expense of the +1 To Wound, he might not be Fearless, and he might not have 2 Will/2 Fate, but in all other departments, Gloin and Dwalin are the same - and you get that for 25pts less. As such, Gloin smashes the socks off the dueling, wounding, and Strike categories and with Courage 6, he's pretty good in the Courage department and comes in below the 110pt threshold for cost to finish with a utility score of 4.033 - just 0.083 points above Dwalin (and 0.233 points above King Dain at 10^th place).

I've been running Gloin in my Gimli slot this year and this guy is as reliable as they come - 3 Attacks with +1 To Wound, high Defense so you can reliably Piercing Strike if it helps you, and rerolling all 1s To Wound is pretty slick. At 90 points, he's not as cheap as Irolas or Angbor, but he's going to hit a bit harder than either of them with that extra attack and +1 To Wound without a dueling penalty. With potentially D8 (again, he can Piercing Strike, so that COULD go down if he loses the duel), he's also very resilient (which is a huge plus).

So if Gloin and Dwalin aren't in slot #1, who could possibly beat them? Interestingly enough, it's a man from Gondor . . . one who you usually see riding a horse in Matched Play . . .

Rank #1: Hurin the Tall

Photo Credit: Gondor at War

Yep, one of the best bargain heroes in the Minas Tirith army list takes the top seed. How in the world did this guy pull it off? Well, he pairs a good dueling stat (F5/2A) with a good wounding stat (S4 with +1 To Wound - it has a penalty if you don't get a natural 6 on your dueling roll), he's got 3-Might-and-Strike, and has Courage 6, just like Gloin. However, he's only 80 points instead of 90 points - so while he's not going to hit as hard as Gloin (his better point of comparison is actually Angbor), he's going to do what we wanted him to do . . . for 10 points less. Honestly, having both of these guys in your Fellowship would be great - and if you had to choose which one wouldn't be progressing beyond Amon Hen, I'd choose this guy.

This does highlight some interesting things about the model - this particular slot didn't reward people for having 3 Attacks (more on that next time) and it didn't reward players for having good Defense (which, honestly, is hard to get in Fantasy Fellowships - there's a good corps of units who can get to D7, but getting above D7 requires you to be a bear, a Dwarf, or a ghost). All told, I think I'm happy with the list . . . mostly . . . there are a few profiles I was sad didn't make the top 10. And here are a few of them.

Notable Mention #1: Nori the Dwarf and Cirion, Lieutenant of Amon Barad

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

If you're looking at heroes who are F5/2A, have S4 with +1 To Wound, and have good Courage with access to Strike for a pretty low cost, Nori the Dwarf should probably come to mind. If these stats sound familiar, they should - they're basically identical to what Angbor has. I was a bit surprised that Angbor and Bifur made the list and Nori didn't - as it turned out, the reason for this has to do with two categories: the Courage category and the Cost category.

Bifur made the list because he's getting all the same scores as Nori EXCEPT he costs 10pts less - so he clocked in with a utility score of 3.872 and Nori got a score of 3.772. Angbor, on the other hand, costs 10pts more than Nori, but has Fearless instead of Courage 5 - and that made Angbor jump a bit higher than him. Nori came in 11^th and just missed the cusp - and honestly, if I was choosing between Dain or Nori to take this slot, I'd probably take Nori . . .

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

. . . unless I wanted to take Cirion. I didn't think there was much point in this guy in Matched Play until Rythbyrt was like, "Dude, he's a 3-Might-and-Strike hero for only 55 points - with Heroic Resolve!" Since then, I've seen other players take up the horn for Cirion and I've been convinced - for his price, he's a cheap Strike hero and a good add. In Fantasy Fellowships, this is particularly valuable and he ended up tying for 11^th place with Nori - just barely missing the cusp for similar reasons (he flip-flopped the Wounding and Strike scores of Nori). He is base F4, so in the one scenario where he's fighting Uruk-Hai, he'll need to Strike to have the upper-hand (which Nori wouldn't need), but his F4/D6 in the other scenarios will serve him well.

Notable Mention #2: Denethor

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

As I mentioned earlier, you'd expect Denethor to score well in this metric - he's F5/2A, he's got a good Courage stat of 6, and he's incredibly cheap at 35 points. He's so-so on the wounding stat with only S4 (so it makes sense that he's not in the Top 10), but with 0 Might (let alone access to Strike or Defense), there was an entire category he didn't score in. As a result, a hero that I expected to do quite well in this spot came in at . . . tied for 71^st place overall with a score of 3.072 (which is still just under 1 utility point off of first place . . . yeah, it's tight at the top).

Notable Mention #3: Boromir of Gondor

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

We've spent all this time talking about who'd be best in the Boromir slot, and as has already been alluded to, Boromir doesn't even make the Top 10 list. In fact, he barely makes the Top 50 list! Boromir is in a six-way tie for 42^nd place with Fellowship Legolas, Young Thorin, Bard II, Champion Balin, and (wait for it) Gwaihir. If that seems like an ecclectic set of guys to tie for one slot, you'd be right.

Boromir's final score (and those of the other models mentioned above) was 3.433, which reflected doing really well in three categories (dueling, wounding, and usually the 3-Might-and-Strike), pretty good on the Courage stat (most of these guys are Courage 6), and then differences in their costs. As I mentioned above, Boromir probably could have scored better on his wounding metric if I allowed him to burn Might to boost his wounding rolls, but I'm not sure I'd do that too much in Fantasy Fellowships.

As with any mathematical model, there are changes you could make to it - we could have weighted the cost category more than the combat/Courage categories so that we had less expensive models scoring well (though most of the models we looked at were around 100 points, so I didn't think it was that bad). Still, there's probably room for more granular improvement in the model, but the results from this set have been interesting and intriguing for me - and hopefully they have done the same for you!

Conclusion

I've included the full ranking for the Doomed Companion slot below - fair warning, it's long. If you've enjoyed this post, let us know in the comments below! Next time, we're wrapping up the analytic model section of this series by looking at the Three Hunters slots and what they need to be able to do (and which models do that the best for you . . . according to me). Until then, happy hobbying!

The Doomed Rankings:

Click to view it in a readable font!